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together the best of the various opinions of his own time, and to collate all 
the principal sayings of the most learned men of the two or three preceding 
ages. He did the work imperfectly, however, and his book on the orthodox 
faith was a condensation as well as a compilation, which was greatly improved 
by the illustrious Peter Lombard, “the Master of the Sentences,” as he 
was called, who laid a better foundation for the ages to come after him. 
He began that work which has lasted until now ; and with all due deference 
to those who think theology is scientifically faulty and indefinite, I think 
nothing has been so permanent, so consistently maintained, or so little mis- 
understood as theology. You find the same arrangement in all the great 
surveys of the first, the middle, and the latest schools. Thomas Aquinas is 
considered to be the pattern doctor of theology. His great Summa Theologian 
is still one of our theological standard works. He begins in his Prima Pars 
by pointing out that all the primary truths of theology must be submitted to 
a close analysis of the human reason. He deals with the nature, being, and 
attributes of God, and more than a hundred other distinct sets of proposi- 
tions ; and from that he advances to the consideration of the Trinity. But he 
does not leave out of his thought the possibility of other beings lying between 
God and man, and therefore he most suggestively inquires into the possibilities 
of heavenly and angelic existences. Thus in a most subtle and yet perfectly 
simple way he clears the ground, and puts aside all objections that must arise 
if he had not dealt with that point as a kind of episode. But who is that being 
who is to examine and consider the God who made him ? It is man. And 
so the second part of that great book is devoted to the examination of man 
and his duties. So that, after having discussed the first and general conditions 
of religion in the Prima Pars , we are invited in the Secunda to an extensive 
analysis of all the virtues. Then he comes naturally to the consideration of 
the union between man and God, — the Incarnation. He could not have dis- 
cussed the Incarnation if he had not first of all examined what we believe 
concerning God, as well as what we believe concerning man ; because if Christ 
is to be both God and man, we must clear our minds as to what God is and 
as to what man is ; and this doctrine, as well as the career of our Blessed 
Master, will be found to depend on an exact understanding of what we mean 
by man as well as what we mean by God. The book next goes on to explain 
the system of the Church, in which the doctrine of the Incarnation has been 
most perfectly developed. The whole of the doctrine of the sacraments then 
naturally arises. This division of the Summa Theologice was not peculiar to 
St. Thomas Aquinas. You trace the same arrangement in William of Ockham 
and in Duns Scotus ; and for five hundred years you have the great schools 
of Christian theology dealing thus with the whole subject ; and now again 
you have scientific theology gaining ground. In the Church of Borne this is 
exhibited in a striking way, and I would to God it were here also ; for I am 
sure that the revival of it in the Koman Church will tend to deprive the 
modern dogmas of that Church of all support. A proper statement of the 
nature of the Incarnation will for ever destroy the doctrine of the “ Imma- 
culate Conception,” as it is called. Let us rejoice that there is this tendency 
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